Comptroller Compfusion: How Do You Pronounce It?

[sl8]

I had no idea.

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=213578217
(3 minute audio at link)

Comptroller Compfusion: How Do You Pronounce It?

August 19, 2013 5:13 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered
Joel Rose

[...]

JESSE SHEIDLOWER: It's definitely controller. It has always been controller.

ROSE: Jesse Sheidlower is the president of the American Dialect Society. He says the word control and controller are basically derived from the 15th century French term for someone who audits government records or rolls. Sheidlower says the English spelling with C-O-M-P-T is rooted in a mistake.

SHEIDLOWER: It was just spelled in its archaic spelling based on a misunderstanding of the word's etymology. So the modern pronunciation of comptroller just based on how the word is spelled, has nothing to do with how it's ever been pronounced.

ROSE: But try telling that to the man who currently holds the office in New York, John Liu. Here he is speaking to WNYC's Brian Lehrer after the last elections.

[...]

[PoliticAverse]

1. The people who say comp troller are just trollers. n/t

[mahatmakanejeeves]

2. Comp-troller, just as it's spelled. My father was a comptroller.

I am not getting comped for this.